21st century parenting: same, same, but different

Do the smartphones, tablets and laptops to which our kids are permanently attached make parenting more difficult for modern mums and dads? Nick Price thinks the technology may have changed but the challenges remain the same.

When I was in my teens I used to speak to my best friend Graeme on Sunday nights. I lay on my parents’ bed, chosen for its location as the furthest point in the house from the rest of the family, and we unpicked the exciting moments of our weekends. I don’t recall how we found so much to talk about seeing we had spent most of the weekend together anyway and so weren’t telling each other anything we didn’t already know. But we were dedicated to analysing our fun in a fashion I believe did us credit.

Back in the dark ages of my youth, time spent on the phone had to be rationed because, with just one line coming into the house, the phone was our only link with the outside world. If someone was on the line no one could ring in and no one could phone out. We were completely cut off, unless we took radical action, such as standing up and leaving the house. Being constantly told to get off the phone was not an insubstantial cause of annoyance. After all, what was the worst thing that could have happened if I stayed on for another hour? Maybe my sister missing a call informing her that Katie Tyson had got a new haircut?

Still, my parents allowed me my Sunday night ritual but at Graeme’s end, his folks decreed that he was only allowed to hog the phone until Sons and Daughters finished. That soap opera concluded with a closing scene cliff-hanger before the final shot froze and turned sepia. I wasn’t watching because I was in my parents’ room where no television was allowed by state statute, so when Graeme shouted “Oh no, they’ve gone brown!”, we knew time was up. We both quickly shouted bye, hung up and the lines of communication were utterly destroyed until we saw each other the next morning on the train to school.

Constant connections

My children’s lives are so different. When I was growing up I was never allowed to have a television in my room because it would interfere with homework and my parents wouldn’t be able to monitor what I watched. With their laptops, tablets and smartphones our kids have the world in their pockets. How do we know where they are and where we stand?

The answer to this is fairly short and not particularly comforting … we don’t know.

Today’s kids are in constant contact with their friends through a multitude of devices. We couldn’t monitor everything they do even if we wanted to. Indeed, the very idea of limiting use of those devices is an anathema to my offspring. Whenever I dare suggest that my eldest concludes her business with her friend Gemma by way of a five-minute phone call rather than a seemingly endless series of text messages over the course of several hours, she looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps I have.

The more things change …

Still, I try remember a couple of things in regard to my kids’ use of new technologies.

This above all: keep them safe. Regularly check that they are vigilant about never giving out personal details on the internet and ensure their social media sites apply the highest privacy settings.

Also try to set reasonable expectations and keep the lines of communication open. Trying to ban your child from social networking sites is like pulling the plug on their social life. Agree on a daily limit of time spent online and try to stick to it. Anne Collier, co-director of ConnectSafely.org, says taking a hard line and trying to ban use of the internet causes more problems than it solves:

“They go into stealth mode. There are so many devices they can use to connect, there are friends’ houses and libraries and cafes and school and all these places where they can go online where we can’t control them. If we really want to control every movement of their lives, they’re at greater risk, actually, if we shut down communication”.

Every day I release my girls into the world and trust that they have been given values that will ensure that they’ll act with respect for themselves and others, that they won’t steal or bully, or otherwise unnecessarily cause unhappiness to anyone.

I imagine my folks felt the same when I left the house years ago to meet Graeme at the station. We may imagine new technologies raise new problems for parents to tackle but I can’t help feeling that the worries of parents remain very much the same as they have since the arrival of bronze worried the hell out of stone age parents. (It’s so shiny!! They’ll go blind!!)